1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to connectors adapted to accommodate different positioned contacts of the complementary connectors wherein the mating contacts of different complementary connectors may deviate in a range from the centerline of the mating contacts of the subject connector.
2. The Prior Art
As generally used in computer industry and shown in FIG. 1, at least two sets of the circuits and their corresponding male connectors are dispensed on the PC board which is generally horizontally positioned in the interior of the computer. Among these two sets, one set is of signal issue and the other is of power issue wherein the contacts of the power connector are of a larger dimension and a small number, and arranged in a larger pitch form. In contrast, the contacts of the signal connector are of smaller dimension and a large number, thus being of a small pitch arrangement. In the conventional arrangement, the power connector 10 and the signal connector 12 are of the Header type, and respectively solderably mounted on the PC board and respectively mating with two separate complementary connectors, i.e. other Header connectors, which are respectively connected, through IDC (Insulative Displacement Contact) means, to flat cables. Such flat cables are, directly or indirectly, respectively connected to the power circuit of the main board if such cable is related to the power connector 10, and to the signal circuit on the main board if such cable is related to the signal connector 12.
The aforementioned power connector 10 and the signal connector 12 may be mounted on the board of any functional unit, e.g. the harddisk, in the computer. In the recent trend, some manufacturers intend to arrange the these two Header connectors 10, 12, i.e., the power one and the signal one, as a unitary piece for the consideration of saving cost, as shown in FIG. 2. In other words, this unitary connector has the power section 11 and the signal section 13 thereof. Then, the complementary power and signal connectors respectively associated with their own IDCs and flat cables are respectively mated with the power section 11 and the signal section 13 of this unitary Header connector 14. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,024,609 and 5,145,411 may be deemed related to the similar concept.
In the present invention, an attempt is taken that the complementary separate power and signal connectors which are connected to the flat cables via the IDCs, may be integrated to be of a one piece to properly mate with the aforementioned corresponding unitary Header connector 14 on the PC board for lowering the cost. U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,961 discloses a matter related to the similar concept.
Certainly, if the unitary connector 14 on the PC board and the unitary complementary connector are made by a same manufacturer and have been configured to compactly mate with each other, this coupling will be appreciably good and operative. Unfortunately, most computer manufacturers who buy the different components including various connectors from outside different vendors to assemble the whole computer system, may get these two complementary connectors from two different parties. Then, the problem may occur. The reason is that the standard specification to meet is only referred to the dimensions of the respective power connector 10 and the respective signal connector 12 such as the matter regarding the dimension of the outer configuration or inner space of the standard connector where will accommodate the corresponding portion of the complementary connector associated with the flat cable. As specified, the pitch between two adjacent contacts of the power connector 10 is 5.08 mm and that between two adjacent contacts of the signal connector 12 is 2.54 mm. When the power connector 10 and the signal connector 12 are lengthwise juxtaposed together in form of one integral unit, there is no standard regulation, till now, regarding the distance between the innermost contact 16 of the power connector 10 and the innermost contact 18 of the signal connector 12 wherein these two innermost contacts 16 and 18 oppositely face to each other with a partition 20 intermediating therebetween. In other words, the variation of thicknesses of the partition 20 in the lengthwise direction of this unitary connector will vary the dimension of the whole connector in the lengthwise direction even though the power contacts section 11 and the signal contacts section 13 still meet the standard requirement, respectively.
If the complementary component to this unitary connector 14 positioned on the PC board is composed of two connectors such as the conventional type, there may be no problem for mating because the individual complementary power connector and the individual complementary signal connector can respectively and adequately mate the corresponding power section 11 or the corresponding signal section 13 of such unitary connector 14 without interference with each other due to the power section 11 and the signal section 13 of the unitary connector 14 being in compliance to the standard specification, respectively.
However, as mentioned before, some computer manufacturers also tend to use a unitary complementary connector, which comprises the power region and the signal region connectedly associated with the respective flat cables, corresponding to such unitary connector 14 mounted on the board for saving cost. Then, some unexpected matters will happen to the mating of these two unitary connectors. Understandably, the relative positions of the power section and of the signal section in the unitary connector 14 on the PC board do not precisely comply with those of the power region and of the signal region in the unitary complementary connector which is connected to flat cables if these two mutually complementary unitary connectors are made by two different connector manufacturer and have different distances between the power section/region and the signal section/region. In other words, if the signal section 13 of the connector 14 on the PC board can mate the signal region of the complementary connector associated with the flat cables, then, the power section 11 of the connector 14 on the PC board cannot be adequately coupled to the power region of the complementary connector associate with flat cables. From a viewpoint of engineering, that is, the centerline of each contact in power region of the complementary connector deviates from the centerline of the corresponding power contact in the power section 11 of the connector 14 out of an acceptable range. Accordingly, under the situation that the signal contact section 13 of the connector 14 in position can be adapted to be aligned with and mated with the signal region of the complementary connector, the male pin of the power section 11 of the connector 14 on the PC board can not be in alignment with the female receptacle of the power region of the complementary connector having associated flat cables, and even can not be inserted into the opening of the corresponding passageway of the complementary connector in which the female receptacle is received. As a result, the unitary connector 14 and its complementary connector still can not be completely and correctly coupled to each other and fail to work with each other.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a complementary female connector having a unitary housing enclosing a power region and a signal region and being adapted to couple to a male connector 14 which is positioned on the PC board and also has a unitary housing enclosing a power section and a signal section regardless of insignificant difference of the distances between the power region and the signal region in the subject female connector and between the power section and the signal section in the male connector 14 mounted on the PC board.
Additionally, another important trend of the recent industry is component modulization. As shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,941,841, 5,139,439 and 5,277,615, the harddisk or the like is designedly modulized to be a detachable slide-in device from the computer set so that the whole system can be optionally upgraded by adding such harddisk thereto. For consideration of low insertion force, the scientific way to couple the slide-in harddisk to the computer set is to use a card edge connector disposed in the computer set for receiving a card-like portion of such slide-in harddisk, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,615. Unfortunately, the most harddisks commonly use the pin type male connectors to mate the corresponding socket type female connectors disposed in the computer set, as shown in FIG. 1 and described in the previous paragraphs. Therefore, another object of the present invention is to provide an adaptor which not only has a unitary housing comprising the power region and the signal region on the front portion to conformably mate the corresponding unitary connector which is mounted on the PC board and is composed of the power section and the signal section thereof in the front portion for mating with the power region and the signal region of the subject connector, but also includes plate-like means on the rear portion for slidable reception within a card edge connector which is connected to plural flat cables through IDCs.